Lateral flow assays for toxins, metabolites, and beyond

The most popular point-of-care biosensors for diagnostic, biomedical, food, agricultural, and environmental applications are lateral flow assays (LFAs). While the fundamentals of lateral flow assay technology date back several decades, newer nanomaterials have been employed as receptor attachment platforms or signal transducers, enhancing analytical capabilities. The recent development of LFAs illustrates their promising features, including their capacity to analyze several analytes and their speed, precision, dependability, and affordability for detecting toxins and metabolites. With their connection to smartphone technologies, they present an encouraging technological tool for point-of-care analysis, mobile medical services, and bioanalytical requirements. This chapter presents the LFAs for toxins and metabolites, investigates the construction protocol of LFAs, sensitivities and detection limits of LFAs, and limitations in complex sample applications. In addition, the challenges facing the next generation of LFAs and their commercialization are emphasized. Furthermore, this chapter will stimulate further study to create sophisticated, multifunctional, and integrated LFA for different applications. © 2026 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved..